There are many enviroments in which load cells are used for the purpose of determining forces applied to an object. One such environment is a weighing scale wherein the strain of a load cell is measured to determine the weight of an object that is placed on a load support. An example of such a weighing scale that uses load cells may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,675. Where a load cell is used to measure the force on an object, safety measures are normally taken to assure that the strain gauge used in the load cell will not be acted upon so greatly that the load cell is damaged or destroyed. Prior art safety measures normally involve a pair of opposed load ends that are spaced relative to one another such that the amount of extension of the load cell is limited. The shortcoming of such safety measures is that any object, such as a bearing surface, normally has a degree of resiliency or yield so that if an extremely heavy object is dropped from a great distance upon the mechanism in connection with the load cell, the safety device would yield sufficiently so that the load cell would be damaged or destroyed.